A Different Perspective
by thinktink2
Summary: You have to wonder what Eve's thoughts are as she senses things between Nick and Adalind might not be so platonic. One-shot. Not part of my Nadalind universe.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Still procrastinating. Another idea I'm not sure where it came from but begged to be written. Follows events in the tv series. Not sure if I've got the voice right.

%%%%%%%

I was so consumed with anger, grief, hurt, and regret, over what had happened, what they had all did to me, what _she_ put into motion, what I did to them, that it was almost a relief to have died. It was consuming me, but not fast enough, because there were moments I was aware of the pain I had caused them all there at the end. Caused Nick.

I didn't know a way out of it until the Wall showed me, reshaped me, help me to let go of the pain and anger and the past and channel it into something useful. Resurrected from the dead and it seemed best to leave everything that had died with me there in the ground.

Eve. The government's code name for they what they did to me, their special project, and the name had stuck, but the memories of my time before as Juliette stuck, too. So long as they stayed buried, but I didn't anticipate that Nick's ability to compartmentalize whatever feelings he had left for me and months of albeit limited interaction would resurrect the Juliette I had long since tried to forget.

Never in a million years did I imagine hurting Nick the way I hurt him. I had loved him for so long, been in love with him, that what happened...it can't be explained away.

I had reasons, though. Good ones, or so I thought at the time.

It's unbelievable that after all the hurt she had caused him-had done nothing but hurt him from the moment they met-that he should love _her._

He acts as though she gave him some great gift, getting pregnant with his child. If she hadn't been trying to strip him of his gifts, his abilities as a Grimm, trying to _hurt_ him, he wouldn't even have a child with her.

I gave him those abilities back and he couldn't even look at me.

Of course it's Nick so he loves the baby no matter what. A boy and the heir to the Burkhardt name, and maybe even the Grimm tradition. To whom she will always be the mother of, and he seems to regard her more reverently because of it.

It's sickening.

And it hurts.

It's evident no matter how he tries to hide it-they both try to hide it-that he feels strongly about her. The way he looks at her, eyes lingering a beat too long. When they talk, the way he turns his body into her, and when he touches her, trying to pass it off as a nonchalant brush of his hand that the gesture is more intimate and familiar.

And that hurts too. He's sleeping with her, that's glaringly obvious to anyone that knows him like I do. Another thing they're both trying to hide, and I can't help but wonder why they even bother at this point.

I wonder what she says or does that makes it okay, that makes it even possible for him to look at her and then make love to her, after everything she's done to him. Maybe it's just sex between them. Maybe he tells himself it's the mother of his child and that makes it easier to ignore everything else she is.

The hexenbiest who tried to kill him, ruin him, destroyed his life and his happiness. The hexenbiest he goes home to every night, wakes up to every morning, shares a morning cup of coffee and dinner and tidbits of his day with. The hexenbiest who isn't me.

She actually sounded happy when she answered his phone. After everything she has done, that she gets to be the one who is happy, living with him.

 _Nick Burkhardt's phone_. The laughter in her voice, as though there was some shared joke between them, the subliminal intimacy they had, rankled. And then _he_ had sounded disturbed and annoyed, as though I was intruding on their private time together, and that had hurt too. That he wouldn't want any excuse to be out of the house, away from her.

He doesn't allow himself to feel anything but anger and resignation with me. There's no familiarity anymore, though that's as much my fault by design as it is his inability or refusal to see beyond what I've made myself into now. Everything I had to do to survive after everything she set in motion.

My own culpability in destroying his life, and his happiness.

It makes me wonder though, that if he can forgive her, or look past everything she has done, is there hope for me and for us? Is it truly just loyalty to the child and the child's mother, or could there be something deeper?

She's holding their baby in her arms, and Nick—Nick looks like the Nick of old—making faces at his son, not the weary, haggard, dark and hard Nick that's been walking around these last nine months. He exaggerates his expression and the baby smiles, laughs a little, and I see both Adalind and Nick share in a grin, too. Nick looks years younger, happy.

Proud parents.

No matter what Nick and I are able to reconcile she will always be between us now. That baby will always be theirs, no matter what.

She tells him she loves him. They're alone, just me and the shadows, and I can just make out her words from my place in the darkness of the parking garage. He doesn't say it back, but he leans forward after a moment and kisses her, their son held in her arms between them, and he breaks away a moment later, the eyes lingering again on her face before she bids him goodbye and he helps her settle their child in what used to be my car and he watches her drive off.

Despite the looks and the touches and the newfound intimacy, he's having a hard time reconciling their current relationship with their past. It's confusing him, what his heart wants and what his head is telling him. I think maybe that's the opportunity to remind him he shouldn't be so accepting of whatever charms she's using, they won't last, but there's no other way to say, other than how I already have, that he should be careful with her.

And I'm gripped by the fear that what if it doesn't matter and he loves her anyway, despite it all. That it somehow works between them, the hexenbiest and the Grimm who used to be mortal enemies. That they find happiness and are able to have a life together, where he and I couldn't, despite six years as a foundation.

It's astounding, how he's able to even consider a relationship with her when he could never get past what I had become with ours. How repulsive he found me and yet he finds her so attractive?

He starts walking away, heading back into the precinct, and I step out of the shadows and he turns to me with a frown, hand hovering over his pistol until he realizes it's me. His hand moves away from his holster and his eyes are distant and cold, affecting that look he usually wears when he's around me.

He's still trying too hard. Trying too hard to show he doesn't care anymore about me, that I don't affect him, and it hurts because it's mostly true.

Mostly, but not completely. I can still get to him if I want to, but it's getting harder each day as he slips more firmly into a life with her.

"Eve," he says with a touch of annoyance in his voice. "What do you want?" He glances almost involuntarily to where Adalind had been, and I wonder what's going through his mind, if it's the thought I may have seen them, that their secret relationship isn't so secret, or worry from me and what I may do to the child and the hexenbiest who bore him that.

"I have some information you might be interested in," I say, and his frown deepens and I am struck by how unhappy he looks now whenever he interacts with me. He nods slowly and heaves a sigh.

"What is it?"

"Not here," I say, because I can tell he just wants me to spit it out and be done with it. Done with me. He looks doubly annoyed now, and says irritably, "Where?"

"I'll call you with a time and place for a meet," I say, knowing he wants a time and date now, so he can organize his life, settle into his evening with her. My life is no longer organized and neat because of her, why should his be?

%%%%%%%

The scent of her lies thick with him.

He's slept with her again, and I ponder how frequent an occurrence this is for them, what sex is like between them before I can clamp down on the thought. Is this something that happens with fair regularity, or just when he's in the mood for human contact and resigns himself to it being with her. If he's the same with her as he was with me, and I think given their history, he can't be. Does he truly make love to her when he's intimate with her? He seems lost in his thoughts, reflective, and the usual moodiness and shortness he has with me has been replaced with the quiet resignation he sometimes demonstrates when he's been forced into interacting with me.

"You said you had information for me?" he asks without preamble as I settle into his truck beside him.

"How's Adalind?" I reply, "Have you seen any of the changes I spoke of?"

I want to know if she told him, if she has the balls to be honest and upfront with him, instead of letting him believe that everything is normal and happy, or whatever passes for it, between them.

He looks away from me, out the driver side window, as the rain pelts down, and I can tell by his expression I've hit a nerve.

"Has she said anything?" I press, and he pulls his attention away from the rain and back to me and gives me a hard look.

"What we talk about is none of your business," he says and his answer gives me my answer. _We_. Not she or I. I wonder if he's even aware of what he said and how he said it.

He's aware of what she's becoming again, what she may already be and it's interesting that knowing this he still chose to sleep with her regardless. What goes through his mind when he makes that choice? I'm gripped with the sudden fear it's love, that he loves her and he hopes by making that choice he's proving to her somehow that what she is doesn't matter to him.

"You said you had information?" he prompted again, his hand going to the ignition, the implication being he's going to drive off in a moment if we don't get down to business.

"Diana has surfaced," I say, expecting shock from Nick. I don't get it and I look at Nick curiously.

"I've heard," is all he says and I wonder where and who from.

"Adalind?" I ask and he looks away from me again. _Adalind_. So they talk about some things.

"Where did she hear it from?" I ask him, looking forward, and he turns back to look at the windshield.

"Renard," he says, and I look at him again.

"Renard contacted her?" I push and he nods shortly.

"Interesting," I say, and a muscle ticks in his jaw. He feels threatened by Renard and this development, I can see, and what it means for Adalind and their relationship. "He's going to use Diana to enlist Adalind's help with his campaign," I add and Nick turns back to me.

"How do you mean," he asks, shifting in his seat.

"Rachel is pushing for a more family-man oriented platform. Diana, the daughter, and Adalind, the wife, obviously. A ready-made family," and Nick frowns.

"I doubt Adalind's willing to go along with that," he says with an assuredness that speaks volumes of how close they've grown over the months.

"She may not have a choice. I doubt she does. Renard is probably using the knowledge of Diana's whereabouts to coerce her into helping him. We need to know more about what he's trying to do. Diana in the hands of the uprising would be detrimental, and it's concerning that they may know or be in possession of her."

"I told Adalind to tell me the next time he tries to contact her," Nick said.

"You think she will?" I ask and it hangs in the air between us that she still hasn't told him about her powers returning.

"Yeah," Nick replies, but he's not as confident now, though he tries to hide his uncertainty.

"You should know I told Adalind that if she hurts you, I'm coming for her," I tell him after a thick silence and he looks at me in surprise, mouth twisting before he finds his voice.

"You threatened her?" he asks anger creeping in his voice. He's protective of her, I note. "When was this?"

"A few weeks ago, at your loft, when Rosalee and Monroe were hiding in your walls," I tell him, and there's something there because I see a flicker of recognition, or fear and concern, and I file that away for future reflection.

"You came to my home?" he asks incredulously and he shifts again in his seat, turning to me more fully. He always did try so hard to make it safe, but it looks like his efforts at the loft were as wasted as the ones on our home when we lived together, though the level of security at his new place was interesting to note. As was the barrenness and bleakness of the place. How completely opposite of where he used to live.

"Yes," I say looking at him.

"What the hell do you care about me?" he asks coldly. "You made your choice, remember?" And it's clear in his inflection that he's made his. "I'm just some chess piece in the government's fight against the uprising, right? So let's both not kid ourselves that it's anything deeper. Stay the fuck out of my personal life, and my home," he adds venomously and I raise an eyebrow and telekinetically open the passenger door to leave.

"We'll be in touch," I say and allow it to close, Nick still staring angrily after me. He puts his truck in gear a few moments later and I watch him drive off.

%%%%%%%

I hear a baby crying when I enter the shop. I wave a hand and the door shuts and locks behind me. The sound is coming from below my feet, the basement, as are several hushed voices. Rosalee comes out from the side room as I approach the counter.

"How can I—Eve," she notes in surprise.

"I need to see Nick." I tell her and she frowns and nods after a moment.

"He's downstairs," she says. "I'll get him," she says with a reluctance that makes me think she doesn't want to interrupt whatever is happening below us. I tilt my head and distinguish Nick's voice, the baby's, and Adalind's. Rosalee turns to head down the steps to the basement and I follow. She looks at me in surprise and says, with some force, "I can get him."

"That's not necessary," I reply as I continue down the steps behind her.

"Nick," Rosalee calls and I hear Adalind say something to him in a high, strained voice, but Rosalee calls his name again, more urgent, and I miss what is said because of it. I look around Rosalee and spot Nick over near a wooden worktable. Adalind is standing in front of him, her back to me as she's holding their crying baby, and she looks behind her too, and makes eye contact with me. She woges, and there's no way Nick can miss her reaction. He glances at her then looks at me with a closed off expression and steps around her and the child so that he's in front of her now, between us.

He's not surprised to see she's a hexenbiest; of course he's had fair warning. Sometime in the intervening week or so since I have last seen him, he's figured it out for certain, or she's told him. I wonder if he confronted her with it, tired of being played a fool.

"What do you want?" he asks harshly, and Adalind's eyes flick to him before returning to me warily.

"I need to speak with you," I tell him, and he puts his hands on his hip and holster.

"It will have to wait," he says with annoyance, turning his attention back to Adalind and the baby she's trying to quiet. She's shushing him with gentle sounds, hands smoothing over what appears to be hair dark like Nick's, or it will be, perhaps, once it's all grown in. She places a soft kiss against the chubby cheek and the baby looks at his father as Adalind rocks him gently from side to side.

The child has to be about nine months old now, I think, noting the startling likeness to Nick. It has to make it easier, the child looking like him and not the mother.

"It can't wait," I tell him, pulling my attention away from the baby, and Nick turns his head back to me in aggravation and Adalind watches him closely. He opens his mouth to say something, to lash out, when Adalind interrupts whatever torrent he was about to let loose.

"Nick," she says quietly, bouncing the baby a little and he turns his attention back to her reluctantly and I realize how strong the hold is she has over him. The baby makes a noise, and Nick reaches a hand out to touch him, the gesture unbelievably gentle despite the anger that was coursing through him a moment ago. He loves his son, there's no denying that. There had never been any question how devoted a father Nick would be when the time came and he started having children.

She looks at him, something wordless passing between them that punches me in the gut. There's no doubt as to how she feels for Nick either. She loves him, I see, and though he may not be able admit it, the deference he just gave her, the look he gives her in return, shows he feels the same way.

Whatever happened in the last ten days has eroded away some of the confusion and hesitancy he has about her and their relationship. What it is is starting to take shape in his mind. He's starting to put a name to it, and not shy away from it. He nods slightly, and Adalind sighs, relieved, placing another kiss on the baby's cheek. The baby looks at her and smiles, a happy gurgle, and laughs a little as he pulls his foot away from Nick's hand.

Nick doesn't smile, but that emotional response is there in his eyes, the look of adoration and love, and protectiveness he feels for his child.

"Rosalee," Nick says, and I glance at her, noting she's been watching me and not the baby or Nick and Adalind. Rosalee turns her attention back to Nick and Nick turns to her, ignoring me. "Take Adalind and Kelly back to the loft," Nick instructs and Rosalee nods as Adalind protests.

 _Kelly_. It's a jolt to hear the name spoken. He named the baby after his mother, of course. The same woman whose death I arranged, and it's an unforgivable sin, but he's forgiven Adalind for many more.

I look at the child again, looking like Nick, who in turns looks like his mother. The baby will always bear the name as a memorial to Nick for what he lost. His mother. What I took away from him.

"I can take care of myself," Adalind interjects, "I don't need Rosalee as a babysitter," but it's said without any real heat, and Nick flashes a look at her as he shakes his head, and she demurs. If she's in full possession of her powers she'll be capable of mounting a decent defense, a scenario Nick's apparently not willing to risk.

"I don't want you and Kelly there alone with everything that's going on," Nick says and my interest catches at his comment.

"Rosalee has the shop-" Adalind starts to point out and Rosalee interrupts.

"It's okay, I'm just about done for the day. If you can give me a half hour to close up?" she asks Adalind, glancing at Nick, and Nick nods reluctantly. Adalind gives Rosalee an apologetic look and Rosalee smiles and heads back up the stairs to start closing.

"Give me a minute," he says brusquely and I realize the comment is directed at me, though he's looking at Adalind and his son.

"I need to speak with you now," I remind him, realizing he wants a moment alone with her. He sighs in frustration and turns back to me.

"So talk, say your piece and get the hell out," he barks, the look on his face darkening as he looks at me resentfully.

"Alone," I add, looking over his shoulder at Adalind and she narrows her eyes. He moves as though he's going to march over to me, get in my face, when Adalind raises a hand and places it on his arm, holding him to her. There's possessiveness in the way she touches him, mingling with the familiarity and intimacy. Her fingers curl lightly around his bicep as she shifts the weight of the child against one hip. He doesn't shrug her off. Their dynamic is fascinating, particularly in light of their violent history, and the incredibleness of seeing it almost overcomes the numbing pain and anger I feel witnessing it.

He takes a deep breath, re-centering himself again and says in a low voice, "You can either say it here, right now, or you can go upstairs and give me five minutes, but if you expect me to stand here and listen you better pick one in the next five seconds."

I stare back unaffectedly through a count of four before turning to head back up the stairs.

"You have three minutes," I tell him, and he rolls his eyes as he watches me depart. Adalind scoffs lightly and I see her shake her head out of the corner of my eyes before I am standing once again on the main floor. I tune my attention to what they're saying below me, glad to note Rosalee is busy with a couple of customers.

"She's unbelievable," I hear Adalind say to Nick and Nick snorts in agreement.

"Forget about her," he says and it's a testament to their focus on each other that they appear to do just that.

"Nick, what are we going to do?" she asks him, and I realize she's referencing whatever topic they were discussing before my arrival interrupted him.

"We'll talk about it when I get home," Nick said, and clearly Nick isn't dense to the fact I can and am most likely listening to them. There's some very quiet muttering, too low for me to make out what Nick is saying to her, likely a warning about being overheard.

"Nick," Adalind whispers, there's a rustle of noise and I catch a glimpse of them in an embrace through the upstairs doorway, the baby between them, drooling over Nick's shoulder as Nick holds Adalind close to him. Her fingers toy with the hair at the nape of his neck and it's so familiar, as though she holds and touches him all the time.

"It'll be okay," Nick promises. "We'll figure it out," and I wonder if he's referring to the fact she's a hexenbiest now and how it will affect them. He made much the same promise before, but it never amounted to much of anything. What I had become was beyond what he could figure out or deal with. "I guess I should find out what's so important it can't wait five minutes," Nick mutters and I hear the rustle of fabric as they disengage.

%%%%%%%%

It's quiet between us as Nick reviews the documents I've brought him. He stares at them in consternation, not surprising really, as they're so redacted as to be impossible to understand. The number of files like it Nick's read in his career could probably be counted on one thumb.

"She told you," I remark and Nick tenses his jaw and keeps reading. "Her powers are back."

"So what?' he says after a moment. "It was a suppressant. It's not like we didn't know her powers would return."

 _Yes, it's not like you didn't,_ I think. I wonder then what made it seem like a good idea to pursue a relationship with her. The child could explain the cordiality, but the intimacy—he made a conscious decision to allow that to happen with her.

I wonder what he thinks the relationship will be like with her now that she's back to her old self. How long the romance will last?

How he can survive his life blowing apart for a second time.

%%%%%%%%

thoughts?


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Been meaning to get back to this story; another idea that started out as one thing and meandered its way around to another. Hope it still works.

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He's miserable and obsessed.

Of course, he wants his baby back, it's his son. But he's determined to get _her_ back too.

They're a packaged deal to him, he can't have one without the other.

He doesn't appear to blame her for leaving him. For taking his child away and running someplace he has no idea of where it's at to even follow.

He seems to think that she felt she had no choice; that she loved him and was trying to protect him in her own misguided way; that black claw left her with no options.

I remembered crawling out of that tunnel to find him bruised, chest heaving and the holes in his shirt. The bullet shaped holes in his shirt. The bullet shaped holes in his shirt dotting along his chest.

Center mass, and he took three of them and is somehow still standing. There's more holes in the back, not exit wounds, more shots he took, and yet still remained standing before us, alive and determined and a little wild.

Bonaparte was dead on the floor by his feet, looking like he died of a stab wound and Nick was looking wildly about the place, perhaps thinking he had a lot of cleaning up to do if he was to make the space presentable again.

It was never much to look at anyway, but the pile of dead bodies lying around it don't really add much to the resale value.

The location he took such pains to keep unknown has been compromised, and it was done by _her._

The Hexenbiest who betrayed him, not even for the first time, or the second, or even the third. And he's obsessed with finding her and getting her back.

He doesn't say to anyone it's because he's in love with her, but everyone seems to understand that anyway, though no one says anything. He gets agitated when they try to offer him platitudes and after a while no one says anything to him.

I'm trying to hold it together but I'm barely functioning. Something's wrong. I don't know what he did to me, but the memories I've held back, deeply buried are suddenly loose and to the forefront, whipping through my mind and I'm flooded with anger, and hurt, and deep, deep shame and regret, and _pain_ and it's threatening to overwhelm me.

Juliette.

That's what he called me, and it feels like her. Like me again, and it's not me, it _can't_ be me, because I can't live with that me who did so much, so much worse than _she_ did, to hurt him.

He's not focused on that me, though, right now. He's not focused on me at all. He's moving about his home as though he's trying to ready himself for something, and I feel like a decision's been made, a decision none of us is privy to but affects us all profoundly nonetheless.

"I know where she is," and he slips his mask a little, the one he's been wearing that says this has been all about his son and nothing else, but it's been about her just as much as it's been about getting his baby back. "Where Kelly is."

"Where?" Rosalee gasps. She and Monroe are standing close together, Monroe almost hovering protectively, but the danger has passed. Now there's only bodies to clean up. They survey the pile of bodies around them. It's incredible, the sheer number Nick fended off, and I look at the holes in his shirt and wonder what it was that he used that did this to me and did that to him.

"I'm going to meet Renard in a couple of hours and he's going to take me there," Nick says and everyone looks alarmed at this.

"Nick, do you think that's a good idea?" Monroe says.

"We should come with you," Trubel says and Hank agrees, but Nick shakes his head.

"I have to go alone," he says.

"Nick," Rosalee says.

"I have to," he repeats. "I need to see them. I need to know they're okay."

It goes unsaid that he needs to have them back, but everyone understands anyway.

"Dude, you can't trust Renard," Monroe protests. "Not after everything that's happened!"

"I don't."

"You really think he's just going to take you to her?" Monroe asks him disbelievingly.

"I do."

Everyone stares at him, wondering at his certainty.

"Why is Renard suddenly cooperating," Hank asks suspiciously.

Nick doesn't answer. Doesn't have to. Renard has always wanted Nick under his thumb, and I'm seized with the cold wave of fear that maybe he's gotten it. He's got Nick's baby, he's got Adalind, and Renard is smart enough to know he's got Nick right where he wants him. He can use those things against Nick to manipulate Nick to do what he wants.

Nick's desperate enough to say anything, agree to anything, and Renard knows that, and I feel another wave of emotion that I'm the one that has driven him to that. That I took away his last living family, his mother, and that has resulted in him clinging desperately to hold onto what little he has managed to cobble together. A son borne of a Hexenbiest who used him to take his Grimm away, and that mother of his child he's been living with, telling himself he's in love with, that it's okay to love her since she's the mother of his child and the only one who wants him, and the life he leads, ever since that baby was born.

He's emotional and impulsive and his fear and anger are driving him to make horrible decisions.

 _That's easy for you to say. He's not your son._

I feel tears well, and I'm horrified to discover how much that hurts and how I can't hide it, pretend like his words don't affect me anymore. No, he's not mine, but once, he and I wanted those things, things he has now with _her_. A baby, a family, a life shared together. Happiness.

She had sounded happy on the phone when she answered it. Laughing. He's so protective of her. Of his son.

He's not my son, but he should have been, but nothing's going to change the fact that no matter what, no matter how much I wish it, he never will be either.

%%%%%

Nick's gone for a long time. The whole evening and then into the next morning, making me wonder if he found her and spent the night with her, assuaging all his fears and reaffirming his feelings towards her. I wonder if he finally told her, admitted it out loud, that he's in love with her, too.

I'm heartened when he finally comes back to the loft, looking exhausted, a grim line set to his mouth.

We've been here all night, cleaning up and disposing of the bodies, all of us refusing to leave until we know what's going on, if Nick's all right.

Rosalee's been dozing on the single cot in the main room. No one's touched the double up the short flight of stairs.

Their bed. The place where Nick obviously falls asleep beside her, a couple of receipts on the worn night stand that I know are his, night crème, a necklace, and baby lotion on the other side I know instinctively is hers, the one the baby's crib is closest to. It shouldn't be surprising they're sharing the mattress, he's having sex with her, after all, but still it's sort of galling to see it laid out there, so obvious. His shirts in a make shift metal closet, right beside her clothes. A bureau with little odds and ends from both of them, their baby's, too, and pillows that still show the slight indentations of their heads.

And the smell. The smell of them both in here. It's nauseating. I leave Trubel and Rosalee to tidy up the space, though much of the carnage is in the main room of the loft.

He looks around the apartment, empty of evidence of the battle he fought there, just hours ago, and then at us.

He doesn't ask what happened to the bodies. He doesn't look pleased to see us, resigned and headstrong, and it puts me on edge because I know he's done something he knows we won't all like.

"Nick!" Trubel says and Rosalee wakes up. He looks at her with a frown and then moves to the refrigerator to grab something to drink.

"Nick. Did you find Kelly? Was he all right? How about Adalind? Did you see her?" Rosalee says.

"They're both okay," Nick says taking a drink from a water bottle he's selected. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief, even me. I don't want anything to happen to the son he so obviously adores. Nick doesn't need any more heartache with his family.

I can't bring myself to include her with it, but I am also grateful I don't have to witness any grief over her.

"Where are they at?" Monroe says. "Why aren't they here with you?"

His mouth sets in that line again, lips twitching, and he's about to lie to us, or parcel out the truth and we all know him well enough that we draw back a little.

"What did you do?" Hank says, and Nick looks at him.

"Nick?" Monroe says cautiously. Nick looks at them both, debating on his answer.

"What I had to," he says finally.

"What does that mean?" Trubel demanded. He glances at me, eyes lingering, and I realize that his words echo that of my own, when he demanded answers not so long ago as to what I did and why. There's a note a challenge in his expression, too, as though he's daring me to call him on it, and I'm horrified that emotion swells up in my throat and I can't find my voice.

"What did you do?" Monroe says.

"Thanks, the place looks better," he says, looking around the loft at their efforts. Everyone frowns.

"Nick," Rosalee says.

"She can't leave," Nick says, and no asks who _she_ is.

Adalind.

Of course.

"Diana's with her now, she can't leave her daughter. She's worried about…she's worried. And I can't take Kelly away from her after everything's that happened. We don't have any room here, although, they could take the bedroom and I can sleep there," he says nodding at the single bed, sounding like he's trying to reason it out, construct the argument he's going to make with her.

 _We._

"Nick, what are you saying?" Monroe asks him slowly.

"I'm going to go with them, stay with them, for a little while, until we can figure something out."

"What?" Wu says.

"Where?" Hank demands.

"What?" Rosalee says.

"So bring them here," Trubel tells him. "We'll help you keep them safe."

"She can't leave," Nick says again, and I get the feeling it's not just because her daughter is with her now.

"Where are they even at? Is Renard with them?" Monroe asks, and Nick nods.

"Black Claw has a house on the northwest side of Portland; Renard has Adalind and the kids there, playing house with them." He's not able to keep the anger and disgust out of his expression.

"So, what? You're just going to share a room with them?"

"She's not sleeping with Renard," he snaps angrily, and everyone kind of pulls back at the vehemence. "She's not—she wouldn't do that. She's not interested in Renard and what he has to offer. But she can't leave…it's complicated right now. They're staying in different rooms, and I need to be close to my son. I need to make sure they're safe," he says, and no one can argue this.

"Complicated?" Rosalee says, and I push down on the emotions that keep threatening to overwhelm me and try to focus on what he's implicating.

"Why can't she leave? Is it just Diana?" Rosalee asks, and Nick nods, but there's a millisecond of hesitation, and I realize he's parceling out the truth again. Diana, yes. But she's not the only reason.

"So Renard's just going to open the door to you, and let you move in?" Hank asks, still trying to grasp his head around what Nick's saying. What he's not saying.

"We've come to an understanding," Nick says cryptically and everyone looks at each other.

"What does that mean?" Rosalee asks.

"It means I'm going to stay at the house with Kelly and Adalind until I can figure something else out."

"Nick," Hank says, but Nick shakes his head.

"I know you don't like it, and I know it's not the best solution, but I need to be with them. Adalind's scared of hurting her daughter, she's not going to leave without her, and Renard's using Diana to try to control her." The same way he's using Nick's son and Adalind to control him, everybody has to think but nobody points out. Nick can't be so emotionally obtuse that he doesn't see it.

"Diana's…Diana's a bit of a difficult situation to get under control," Nick says and Trubel snorts.

Understatement of the year.

Diana's a bit of a loose cannon, and I wonder how Nick thinks he will be able to make the situation any better. Diana wants her mother, and I'm not sure what the little girl thinks of her mother being so wholly in love with a man who is not her father. What risk there is for Nick who's coming between the little girl and her dream of her family reunited.

She surely remembers Nick's mother who loved and cared for her, and maybe that helps to protect Nick a little, Adalind's love for him too, or maybe it just forces her to be sneakier about expressing her dislike of him coming between them all.

"I need to be with my son," Nick says again, "And Adalind needs to be with her daughter, and she's not going to give up Kelly."

"Renard's just going to forgive and forget everything that happened between you?" Hank asks him dubiously.

Of course not, but he will to some extent, because Renard's smart enough to always look at the big picture, and the big picture involves Nick's cooperation as Renard ascends society and gathers more influence. Renard's feelings for Adalind only extend as far as she's willing to help him achieve that agenda. It's debatable how much he cares about his daughter, but gaining power, that's always been front and foremost in his decisions, and he'd be more than willing to let bygones be bygones, at least for the time being, with Nick if it meant Nick doing what he wanted. He needs Nick to help him control the Wesen that oppose him.

"I'm suspended for a week," Nick says, "but I've been reinstated. The charges have been dropped."

Everyone looks at him dumbfounded. Nick avoids their eyes.

"I need to pack a few things before I go back," and Monroe and Wu start at this, as though what Nick has been trying to tell us finally resonates.

He's teaming up with Renard.

He's going to move in with her.

%%%%%

He's still unhappy. Tired. But the tension around his eyes, the lines around his mouth have lessened since he's shacked up beside her again.

The unhappiness isn't because he's with her, it's because he's with her in an impossible situation. They've been living together for almost a month now, and it doesn't appear it's been a bed of roses during that time.

He's withdrawn and secretive, plotting his moves, but he's come to a decision and we're all slightly on edge with the anticipation of something getting ready to happen.

He meets with us infrequently, still parceling out his truths. It was over a week after reuniting with her that he mentioned a ring given to Adalind by Bonaparte with special powers. Rosalee and I have been trying to break the spell that apparently is keeping her tied to staying with Renard and it appears our diligence has paid off.

I can smell her on him again.

They've picked up their relationship, and I look at him, unable to help feeling betrayed that he would love her and want to be with her when she stole his son away and nearly got him killed, among all the other things she's done, and he couldn't love me.

Maybe I never gave him the chance, but I wonder how much they've dealt with her being a hexenbiest again. His attention has been focused on a lot of things, hers, too, but have they both really stopped to consider how they're going to live together, Grimm and Hexenbiest, and raise a family?

Can he really find her so attractive like that when he couldn't stand the sight of me?

It keeps playing in my mind, the end, not the very end, but the beginning of the end of my relationship with Nick.

He kept saying he loved me, that he wasn't going to fight me anymore, that what happened to me, didn't matter. It didn't change his feelings for me.

But it did matter. They did change.

In the end, he still had such a hard time looking at me, and my new reality, and in the end I could hardly stand the sight of him.

He slept with her. He did this to me. He had a baby with someone else, someone he hated, someone who had caused nothing but indescribable pain to me and to him, someone who tricked him, and someone whose safety and consideration he put first.

Because of that baby. Because of her, and her lies and her deceit and her manipulations that brought us all here to that point.

I know I hurt him. I hurt his friends, supposed to be my friends, and I did this...all to myself.

I didn't give him a chance to figure it out with me, and in the months since then, he's started to figure it out with her. Had no choice but to figure it out with her.

The baby and by extension her were all he had left to hold onto.

He loves them both, and he's not about to have anything more taken away from him.

He acknowledges me a little more than he used to, but he also looks like he just doesn't want to deal with me. Knows that something has started to unravel inside me and that he just…can't.

He can't anymore.

He's hers and right now he doesn't want to have to think of being anything else.

I can't argue it has to be easier.

%%%%%

They're home.

Plucked from the safe house they were all living at and ensconced in a condo in a reconfigured industrial district, in a suburb of Portland. The condo overlooks a park and it's obvious Nick has picked this space with more than just the children's safety in mind, or at the very least, just one child's safety. Rosalee and Adalind, with help from me, have cast some warding over it, help to protect it and his son, and he and Adalind, his baby, and Diana are all living there while he readies his next move.

One big happy family.

Things aren't perfect. It's obvious Nick and Adalind are trying to adjust, especially now that Adalind's daughter is living with them, but she, too, looks to be relieved to be away from Renard and his influence.

Diana…

Diana is different than I remember and I know they've used whatever it was they used on me, and I hope they know what they hell they're doing because the effects of it are still reverberating nastily to this day.

Her powers have been subdued, not suppressed exactly, but she's more like a child now, and not a demon child. More controllable, and she wants to please her mother.

She seems to like Nick, and she loves Kelly and her mother and she hates me.

She remembers me. My part in causing her pain, too. Taking away the only mother she had known. Nick's mother.

Diana seems willing to ride this new situation out, despite the fact she's been pulled away from her father.

I'm not sure if she realizes her mother is in love with Nick, and that Adalind wants Nick to take over the role of her father, and if she does realize it how she will take it, but Nick goes home to a full house every night and though he's worried about Renard and royals and the uprising, and all the other threats that face him, he's noticeably buoyed by this new development in his life.

It's a reminder of how little family he's been surrounded with all his life. He's talked little about his childhood. Comments dropped here and there, but largely his childhood and adolescence has been glossed over, a clearly painful remembrance that he doesn't often dig into. A memory surfaces and I can remember on a date when we first met and were getting to know each other, offhanded remarks about traveling constantly, moving, "adventures" embarked on by just his aunt and him.

So little family and I took away the most important of them all.

No wonder he hates me.

No wonder they all hate me.

His life as a Grimm is the fullest of friends and family than it has ever been, and my life as Eve is fettering away as the walls I had constructed crumble. I don't know who I am anymore. Who I can live with as being. Juliette? Eve?

Who can live with me?

Everyone's understandably wary about what my loss of control – my loss of Eve - means for them. Even me. I don't know what it means. Instead of the rage and anger I once felt, at Nick, Rosalee, _Adalind_ , it's just deep, deep pain and shame and _regret_. The overbearing weight of the knowledge that I'm never going to be able to atone for what I did.

It doesn't matter, though. Nick's moved on, and he's not interested in hearing any apologies, in fact, the jumbled attempt I made was met sharply with rebuke and since then he's made sure to keep things strictly impersonal.

Much like Eve would have.

%%%%%

I'm alone in the spice shop with Adalind. Two Hexenbiests, just hanging out on a Wednesday night. We're both trying to piece together a spell that will help Nick gain some ground against Renard, and it's taking everything we both have to figure it out and cast it.

Or it should be.

Adalind, apparently, can spare some focus away from spellcasting to, unbelievably, feel me out.

She's living with him and sleeping with him and raising a family with him and she wants to know my thoughts on that?

"No, no—that's not…no, that's not what I'm saying," she stutters. "I know I'm at least part of the reason—"

"Part?" I cut in crisply. "You're _all_ of the reason," I retort, all Juliette. Eve wouldn't be so bothered by this conversation. Eve would have given her a cold look and nipped it in the bud. Eve intimidated Adalind enough that she likely wouldn't venture any thoughts as to my opinion on hers and Nick's relationship.

"It doesn't matter. Nick and I are over," I say, and it's a testament to months of training at The Wall, that I can say it without any inflection. Just cold, hard, fact. But the look Adalind gives me makes me wonder if the statement is as removed as I think it is. "He has no interest in resuming a relationship with me. He has a son with you."

I can't bring myself to wonder even if Nick was interested in resuming a relationship, if I would be able to ever look past the fact that the son he adores is with another woman. A woman I've hated for so long. A woman that managed to capture his heart, too, maybe was always destined to, given the comment I overheard once.

Nick's first introduction to Adalind was not when she was trying to kill his aunt, but when he was checking her out one day while he and Hank were working.

His first woge. When he had told me about it he had only mentioned Adalind as a Hexenbiest and I had naively assumed that was what caught his attention, but Adalind's more feminine looks are what caught his eye, not the monster within. The monster within was what kept them distant. For a while, at least.

That's hardly fair.

Nick checking out another woman isn't unheard of, and neither is he the type of guy ogling other women every chance he gets, or running after them. It's normal for someone who is attractive to catch the eye of someone else, and Adalind is certainly beautiful.

In a slutty, evil, enchantress kind of way.

She looks innocuous enough now, though, in a thick, light grey sweater and leggings, and wavy blonde curls. After a distrusting look at me, Nick left her with a kiss on her forehead as he and Monroe, Hank and Wu pursue some leads, and since then we've been working in tense silence, broken only by speech needed to hand each other ingredients and put together the spell.

Their son is playing in a playpen Nick had had slung over his shoulder and set up before he left and Adalind glances at him from time to time, smiling, and sometimes cooing supportive responses to his babbling.

Diana's with Rosalee at her house. I'm surprised given the generations of Hexenbiest that line Adalind's family tree that Diana isn't here with her, learning the ropes of spellcasting.

Maybe Nick's uncomfortable with the thought of having another practicing witch under his roof, but that's doubtful, and whatever they've done to Diana still seems to be mostly working.

"I know," Adalind says. "I know we have Kelly, but I also know that you both were together a long time, and…and Nick really loved you. He was devastated when he thought he had lost you."

 _Was he?_ I want to snap. _You helped him through the pain, no doubt. He didn't seem to be devastated long. By the time he rediscovered me, it was clear he had feelings for you._

"He was devastated when he thought he lost you," I say, remembering.

It slips out of my mouth without warning and Adalind's eyes dart to me in surprise.

"Kelly," she says after an awkward silence, as though that was the only thing he was possibly worried about, and it was a large part, that's true, but I can still recall Nick's increasingly unhinged behavior when Black Claw manipulated Adalind into leaving him. _She left me._ The loss of his son doesn't explain everything.

"You really believe that?" I ask her.

"Do you really believe he hates you?" she counters.

"He doesn't?" I retort.

"Just because he doesn't love you anymore doesn't mean he hates you."

The comment stuns me, and I'm glad Adalind's back is to me when I react. Not to the fact he may not hate me. He should, and while I should feel surprise at that, I don't. It's the pain I feel at the matter of fact way she conveys _he doesn't love me anymore_.

That's what shocks me. That after all this time, after everything, that the truth can still hurt as much as it just did.

It feels so final.

%%%%%

I really don't want to invite this conversation. I don't want to be friends with Adalind. Given the fight that is in front of us, though – this Wesen revolution—we can't afford to be enemies right now. Nick needs us both, and though I lost any right to claim Nick as mine a long time ago, the thought of sharing him with _her_ is nauseating.

And laughable.

He's so indisputably hers now that I wonder what game she's playing by having this discussion.

Nick barely had the prototypical family. The mother, the father, the children. Something he understandably wants for his own child. He's got more incentive to make it work with Adalind, to find a common ground, to focus on the good than all the bad and the things that could divide him. She seems just as determined, too, to provide her children with a good, stable life, with Nick as the head of their household. She finds little ways to support him in the Wesen fight, background information, espionage, emotional support and acts as an outlet for his anger and frustration, even though it seems like he argues with her daily about her involvement and what it means for her safety and that of their children.

One of those cute little couple fights that make me want to puke whenever I see them.

He leans on her, he trusts her, and he considers it his duty to protect and provide for her, even though, at this stage in the game, she's hardly helpless or defenseless.

He likes taking caring of her.

There's a vulnerability and neediness in Adalind that I never had, even as Juliette, and Nick fills it admirably.

So really, it's not surprising that Nick no longer feels for me the way he once did. The way he does for Adalind now.

It's not.

So why does it hurt so much?

Maybe because despite everything I always believed Nick still loved me somewhere underneath all the anger and pain. That maybe I still love him. That you can't just wipe away six years of love and intimacy with a single blow. That our feelings are more complex than that, at least as complex as those he has to have with Adalind, and their history.

Hate. Love. Why is the line so thin as to be invisible with her, and so thick as to be a chasm between him and me?

These last few weeks when my memories and feelings as Juliette have overwhelmed me, I've let myself be carried away by musings; if it was possible if I could look past his dalliance with Adalind, and begin something anew with him. That maybe, I could look at the son he shares with her, and see the many features that resemble Nick, instead of focusing on all the things that remind me of her, instead of the reminder of all the ways I've hurt him.

It's ridiculous.

I meant what I said to Adalind. Nick has no interest in pursuing a relationship with me again, and is wholly in love with her. He has no desire to share in raising a child with me even if Adalind wasn't in the picture. The mother figure he desperately wants to remain in his son's life would be fulfilled by Rosalee, or even someone else, but likely not by me.

Not after what I did to his mother.

And though I'm floundering with this break of identity in me, trying to find my footing as Juliette again, or Eve, or some combination of the two, I have a hard time imagining us together again.

Together and happy, anyway.

There is a part of me that could see us trying to make something work because a long time ago something sort of worked, but the more I look at Nick and Adalind, the more I see that whatever I thought was working back then, really wasn't.

There's an ease between Nick and Adalind's relationship I almost envy, because after Nick became a Grimm, it was rarely easy between us. Not with filtered truths and outright lies. Then the cold, harsh reality of Nick no longer having to hide what he was. That was almost as detrimental to our relationship than the fictions he and I had both been creating for ourselves.

I remember I thought he had been having an affair. In fact, I once accused him of having one with Adalind when he was fumbling to explain his reaction and his inexplicable hatred and mistrust of her, after her cat scratched me.

And then put me in a coma.

I recall the long and increasingly longer nights supposedly stuck at work, the flimsy excuses when I asked him about them, the way he was quick to change the subject or focus on something else, trying to divert my attention away from his unusual and suddenly secretive behavior.

How I had found the engagement ring he had bought me and had expected him to propose the night of our anniversary, and how he was late for it, and never even realized it, until he was on his way home. How it was no big deal until he realized how upset I was that whatever he was doing, had come between us again.

I wonder if he thinks of marrying Adalind. If he's given up on marriage, but not on having a family, or does he still dream of a wife, and a home, and a commitment to each other.

Given how fiercely protective he is of his child and Adalind and anyone knowing their whereabouts I think he still thinks about it.

To think their lives are easy, is to gloss over the very real issues they face, and the hurdle of their past relationship is a huge one. But they're more comfortable in their life together than Nick and I ever were.

"He may not hate me anymore but that doesn't mean he wants me in his life. That we'll be friends after everything, does it? That he'll just forgive me after everything," I snap.

"Why not? He forgave me," she counters, and I laugh bitterly.

"You had his child. You're the mother of his son. Suffice to say, that Nick is the type of guy who steps up and takes responsibility. You knew that. Isn't that why you're here? Why you went down to the station that day?"

"Yes," she admits. "You were trying to kill me, remember? I was hoping that Nick might feel some responsibility towards his son and protect our baby, but I never thought Nick would do as much as he did; as he has done. We didn't have six years together, but we needed something as incredible as Kelly to look past what we'd both done and try to make a good life for him."

"I gave up his mother to the royals. I tried to hurt Monroe. I threatened his child while you were pregnant with him, and I destroyed one of the last remaining pieces of his family's legacy."

"So, what? I tried to kill his aunt. I hurt you…I'm just saying, we've all done things we're not proud of and it's time we all moved on."

"Forgive and forget, right?" I say sarcastically. "You might be able to gloss over all your sordid misdeeds, but I doubt Nick's so willing to do the same with me." _Especially since sex isn't involved_ , I add silently.

"Nick's not innocent in everything that happened, either."

"Great. You're like the perfect couple," I snipe. "You two deserve each other."

It hurts that despite some truth to that that they can find happiness together.

"I'm just saying he has regrets about what happened, too."

"He feels guilty," I state flatly. I know this. Nick feels like what happened to me is because of what happened to him. What happened to him is because of Adalind. Still. "Nick may have regrets, but it doesn't change that there's no excuse for what I did."

"Maybe not," she says. "But you're never going to find peace with yourself and move on, if you don't start forgiving yourself."

"Maybe I don't deserve peace." I snap, glaring hatefully at her. Why won't she let this go. "Maybe you don't either," I say and she looks at me.

"Maybe not," she agrees, "but I'm not going to go back to the way I was. I didn't want to be a hexenbiest again, but I am, and I just have to accept that I am and make sure I don't allow it to take over my life. Kelly...Nick, they deserve better."

I couldn't agree more, and it must reflect in my face. We turn back to the cauldron and the spell we're working.

"How do you propose to do that?" Adalind shrugs.

"You accept that the person you were before made poor choices, choices that hurt people, maybe badly, maybe irrevocably, but you resolve to do things differently. Second chance. Every day you focus on what's important."

"Some people don't deserve a second chance," I say, eyeing her pointedly, and she smiles ruefully.

"Everyone deserves second chances. If they're sincere in changing their behavior for the better."

"And you're sincere?" I say mockingly. She shrugs again.

"I know, hard to believe, isn't it? But yes, I am. I love my son and my daughter. I love Nick. I don't want to do anything that would ever hurt them again," she says.

"Eve was my second chance," I say after she turns back to the potion we're mixing and silence falls over us again.

"Maybe," she says and I look at her.

"Eve helped me channel my anger for good. Be a good person."

"Was Eve a good person?" she asks philosophically. "She did bad things for good reasons," she says. "Was Juliette a bad person? Even at the end? She did bad things, but we're they bad reasons?"

"You honestly believe they were good ones?"

"I believe I know a little something about making bad decisions and doing bad things for good reasons: the love of my daughter, wanting her back, wanting to be with her. I know a little something about making bad decisions because of very real emotions like anger, hurt, betrayal, mistrust and humiliation. Did it make me a bad person? Yes, for a while, at least. Was I always a bad person? No, I wasn't. Before Nick, before Sean, I made different decisions, some good, some bad. That affected people, some good, some bad. Looking back on everything I did, and looking at the person I am now, am I a bad person? I'm sure you think so, but no…I don't think I am anymore. And I try every day since my son was born not to be."

%%%%%

He looks annoyed at the intrusion. His usual expression whenever he thinks I'm interrupting him, especially with her.

"Oh, hey…Eve," Adalind says dryly, noticing his expression and then me. She bounces back on the heels of her feet, and Nick loosens his embrace as he pulls away from kissing her. Adalind keeps her arms still looped around him, as something about the situation must amuse her, since she tries to bite back a smile as she stares up at Nick.

"Adalind," I say, nodding once. My eyes slide to the right. "Nick." Nick raises an eyebrow in response but otherwise ignores me.

"You going to be okay?" he asks Adalind and I feel a wave of annoyance tempered by hurt that after weeks of working together with his beloved…whatever she is…he still doesn't trust me with her.

Hurt and the understanding that after what I've done I can hardly blame him.

Especially now that Juliette's back.

There's been a handful of times when Juliette would have liked to shove Adalind's head face first into the potions we've been cooking and hold it there.

Still, much as I would have liked to literally drown out Adalind's voice, our conversation from last week still plays in my head.

"We'll be fine. Sean would have to be an idiot to try and mess with two Hexenbiests, especially either of us," Adalind says to Nick and I raise my eyebrow as Nick nods, though his expression reflects his opinion on Renard. Adalind leans forward onto the balls of her feet again, rising up on her toes, and plants a kiss solidly against Nick's mouth. Nick's eyes flick towards me again when Adalind pulls away, and he releases his hold on her reluctantly.

"Okay, call if you need anything." Adalind nods, and Nick takes his leave. "Lock the door!" he calls through the shop door he just left out of and Adalind responds with a roll of her eyes and a flick of her wrist. The lock slides with a loud click and Nick smiles grimly and walks away.

She hasn't tried any more olive branches, or whatever her attempt at conversation with me can be categorized as. I'm still not sure what she was trying to accomplish with it.

Was she trying to justify her relationship with Nick?

Question what I've done?

It isn't as though I haven't been trying to do things right.

I've let her live, haven't I?

The truth is, no matter my feelings on Adalind, I can't be the one who causes Nick anymore pain. I can't allow anyone else to inflict the type of pain on Nick that has been heaped on him these last couple of years. So long as Adalind makes him happy there's no reason to interfere with their lives.

And Adalind makes him happy.

It's not jump up and down happy, but there's a noticeable calm that settles over him when he's with her. He relaxes, he teases sometimes, he laughs and smiles, behaviors I haven't seen in a long time from him.

It reminds me how lonely I am.

Trubel's been trying. She's willing to reach me half way, sometimes three quarters of the way. I'm grateful. I am. I know I don't deserve it, and perhaps the fact Trubel is trying so hard is because she was gone for most of the carnage I laid waste to as Juliette the Hexenbiest.

The others…they're not as eager to mend fences.

Monroe and Rosalee have been polite but distant, though I can sense the reason why in Rosalee. She hasn't said anything to the others and I wonder if Adalind has sensed the change in her as well. No one's said anything, and I get the feeling Rosalee doesn't want anyone to know. Maybe Adalind does and is keeping her secret until Rosalee feels comfortable enough to share. They've grown close in Juliette's absence. Friends. I can see them exchanging tips on baby-raising and sharing in playdates with their children.

Wu's still trying to adjust to his new reality, though of anyone, he's probably the most pragmatic and even understanding of what's been going on with me. Hank's distant, naturally distrustful and concerned as to what I might do with Juliette back in the picture. He slides wary eyes on me when my emotions are showing, wondering, no doubt, if this is the day I snap. If Juliette the Hexenbiest rides into all her angry, vengeful glory again, and starts exacting revenge on everyone who wronged her.

Starting with Adalind.

That stick, though. That stick did something other than just shake Juliette loose. The Hexenbiest isn't quite the same. I thought at first it was the injury I had from my fight with Bonaparte, weakening me, but I don't think so. Something's different, and I'm trying to learn everything I can about that stick, what it does, and why, if it heals, or fixes, that the knights would have been so determined to bury it in the catacombs of that church where no one might find it.

I hear a noisy cry and realize with a start that their son is with us. Adalind sighs.

"Somebody's up," she says, heading further into the spice shop, to the anteroom off to the side where indeed Nick's son is standing inside a playpen, gripping the side tight with chubby, dimpled hands.

Kelly.

I try the name out inside my head, the sound of it always evoking a wave of emotions when I think of his namesake and why they named him after Nick's mother.

"There's my handsome boy," Adalind coos and Kelly looks to his mother and holds out arms to be lifted, promptly losing his balance and landing with a plop on his diaper padded feet.

"He's walking?" I say, because it stuns me that that much time has passed.

"No, not yet. He's pulling himself up with things. Still mastering crawling, but I swear, if I put him on the floor and let him go he can cover more ground than a _hackfleisch_ " she says, and demonstrates. She sets her son on the floor and he sits, staring up at her for a moment. "Go on," she encourages and points at me and a wave of anxiety washes over me.

Kelly looks around the room curiously before spotting me. Before I realize it, I'm kneeling to his level and Kelly smiles and, indeed, covers the couple dozen or so feet between us speedily. He reaches me and smiles again, pacifier in his mouth, and uses my bent knee to leverage himself up to have a better view of his world from two feet or so off the ground.

He looks like Nick. There's no doubt as to his paternity, even if I was still interested in entertaining that idea. Unfortunately, I never did. I realize I never once doubted Adalind's, or Kenneth's, claims that Nick was the father. Given the number of men she's slept with perhaps I should have, but I knew it, when Kenneth told me, and again when I saw them together at the police station that there was no doubt. Curious that Nick never seemed to doubt it, either.

Then again, the sheer desperation of Adalind going to Nick for help after everything she'd done and knowing what he would like to do in retribution, would have suggested she wasn't lying.

"You have to tell him _good job,"_ Adalind instructs, interrupting my thoughts and I focus on the baby in front of me, as she claps to demonstrate and her son cranes his head at the sound. "Good job, Kelly!"

I hesitantly bring my hands together and clap awkwardly, the words feeling dry in my mouth. "Good job," I say hoarsely and Kelly swivels his dark head back to me and smiles bashfully.

He looks so much like Nick.

He rocks unsteadily against my knee as he looks around, and I reflexively grab hold of him to keep him from falling. This is the closest I've ever been to Nick's child. I've never seen so much as a picture of him until he was on TV with Renard, and Adalind and Diana, and even then, Adalind made sure to shield Kelly from the press. She's careful who she trusts her son with, too. Nick doesn't trust anyone, but maybe Rosalee and Monroe, and perhaps Trubel. Had this been Nick, I never would have even gotten within twenty feet of his son.

I glance at her in surprise, realizing she's watching me intently, but not as though she's afraid I will do something to her son.

"You want to hold him?" she asks softly, and I realize I do. Why, I don't know, it's not anything to do with Kelly, it's not anything to do with Nick, or even Adalind. I just…need this…for a moment. Even though it hurts like hell.

He's the child Nick and I should have had but never will now and it's one more nail in an already sealed tight coffin of our relationship to realize it and see him up close. Still, I slide a hand around Nick's son and stand, holding him close to me.

He smells like baby powder and soap. I used to love the smell of a new baby. Juliette loved. He babbles around the pacifier in his mouth before spitting it out and I manage to catch it before it hits the floor. He looks back at his mother, as though for reassurance before turning his head back to me as I try to replace the pacifier in his mouth. He dodges a few attempts neatly, and I wonder if he's as chatty and nonsensical as Adalind is at times and what Nick must think of that. He's got dark hair like Nick, and Nick's eyes, but up close I can see Adalind's features, and I wonder what Nick sees when he looks at his son.

"Hold still," I say, and Kelly makes eye contact with me and I can see the mischievous and defiant look in his eye as he realizes what I'm trying to do. It's 100% Adalind.

"Good luck with that," Adalind says dryly.

"He looks like Nick," I say inanely.

"He does," Adalind agrees.

"And you," I add after a moment.

"Nick says he's a lot like me in personality," and I can see what she means as Kelly squirms, still avoiding my two sneak attempts at re-pacifying him and looking like he thinks this is a fun game he's going to get the best of me at.

I wonder if they spent hours as new parents cataloguing every feature of their son and where he might have inherited it from, as I would have done with Nick.

"He's a lot like Nick, too," Adalind says. "And he's really smart, aren't you?" she asks Kelly, reaching out and tickling his side. Kelly smiles again, a little laugh bubbling up at his mother's ministrations, and looks at me, as though he realizes there's something wrong with me.

"Here," I say, handing Kelly hastily back to Adalind as tears threaten. I didn't think it would still hurt this much after all this time. I've long since accepted that Nick and I are over and will never be again, but I'm overwhelmed by how much I have to atone for in almost denying him this life. I step away from Adalind and her son as I try to get myself back under control.

"I'm sorry," Adalind says and Kelly babbles something incoherent. I nod but don't look at her for a long time. I hear her talk quietly to Kelly, giving me the space I need as she goes about taking care of her son. "I guess we better get started," she says and I nod again as she glides past me to the long counter and takes out the spell book we've been using.

Holding Kelly was the most human I've felt in a long time. It's terrifying how foreign and out of control it makes me feel. I can imagine Nick's reaction if he were to walk in and find me holding his son. How quickly he would snatch him from my arms and back away. Kelly is off limits to me in Nick's eyes. It's a piece of his life he will likely never share, not after everything I've done.

I look at Adalind, focused on the task before her, still pretending that I'm not standing ten feet away falling apart. It used to be so easy to hate her and I can't understand what she's trying to do here, if she's trying to make me come undone, but it doesn't seem like that's the case. Still, I wonder what she's trying to accomplish and glance over at the play pen where Kelly is banging away at a toy. He looks up as though he feels my eyes on him and stares at me for a long moment before breaking into a drool-y smile and focusing on his toy again.

It's like we've come to an understanding, he and I.

I glance back at Adalind, but she's still pretending I'm not here.

"Thank you," I manage to say. There's the barest acknowledgment as she looks up from her notes, frowning.

"We need three _erbsengrosse tierische leber_ , can you believe it?"

%%%%

AN 2: Feedback and perspectives always appreciated.


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